Fireball visible across Northwest skies

By Lyndsie Kiebert
Reader Staff Writer

The American Meteor Society said they received nearly 200 reports of a fireball event seen above British Columbia Tuesday morning. While most reports came from Canada, AMS said people in Idaho, Montana and Washington have all reported seeing that large flash around 5:30 a.m.

According to the Oregonian, the Federal Aviation Administration reported the flash was a meteor after communicating with several air traffic controllers. AMS says that while a “meteor” is defined as the light emitted from an asteroid as it enters the atmosphere, a “fireball” is a meteor brighter than the planet Venus. Tuesday’s event is classified as a fireball due to its brightness, witnessed by people as far south as Lewiston, according to KHQ.

Most described the event as a flash of light similar to lightning, and those who got a better look at the fireball noted that it had a tail. Some described a “sonic boom” after the flash of light.

According to the latest estimated trajectory from AMS, “the fireball traveled in a southeast to northwest direction entering the atmosphere near the small town of Boswell and terminating near Meadow Creek, British Columbia.”

No physical remnants of the meteor have been recovered so far.

You can view a security camera footage of the video at the Sandpoint Reader Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sandpointreader